1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular, to a computer implemented method for managing a distributed data service. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for load balancing using replication delay.
2. Description of the Related Art
A directory is a hierarchical arrangement of information pertaining to users and systems in an organization. A directory server is a server in a data processing environment that serves a directory and provides a directory service. A directory service is a process by which a user in the data processing environment can retrieve details of a user or system from a directory server by providing a name of the user or system.
Directory servers may serve directories that are arranged according to a standard. One such standard is the lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP). LDAP specifies a particular way of hierarchically organizing user information in a directory. A directory may be implemented using a standard, a variation of the standard, or by using a proprietary hierarchy. For example, another standard for directories exists under the nomenclature X.500.
A directory may have parts that can be located on, or served by, different data processing systems. Such parts are called partitions. A partition contains a portion of the directory's data. In some instances, the entire directory may be a single partition.
A partition can be located on one or more data processing systems that can communicate with each other. Various partitions may be able to communicate with each other as well. A directory located across multiple data processing systems is called a distributed directory.
A user of a directory may be a human user, a software application, or a data processing system. In a distributed directory, a particular partition may contain the data that a user may request. In a data processing environment that includes a distributed directory, generally, a system manages the user requests so that the work load of responding to user requests with directory data does not overload a particular data processing system serving a partition of the directory.
Directory, directory partition, and distributed directory are specific examples of the more general concept of data partitioning and distributing data. A set of data processing systems including suitable software can serve any data in a similarly partitioned and distributed manner. For example, a website's content can be partitioned and distributed in this manner.